In every epoch and in every human group good intentions and noble efforts have been valued above all else.  I can imagine every youth, male or female who said, ‘I can do that’ and then bulled ahead to a disastrous conclusion. Our intentions are good and we all are strivers. One of the exemplars is a young nun who became Mother Theresa. Another is the example of someone who never got anywhere, Sisyphus.

In every epoch, there are those whom circumstances put on top of the heap.  They are helped by their good intentions (probably very selfish ones) and great efforts to get to the pinnacle.  Success is measured by your position near or at the top of many pyramids that you find in your pathway through life.  Sisyphus was in a myth. He had great intentions. However, through all these millennia he strives to get a stone pushed to the pinnacle of an old mountain. He pushes that stone two feet and slips back one forever.

Some of us are like Sisyphus working away at some task that only he understands.  Others prefer to bang their heads against walls erected just for them – sometimes against walls they erect themselves.  Others are like the golden, anointed ones who head straight up to the top – to that pinnacle where they shine like beacons telling us – “Go on, you can do it!  If I can do it, so can you”. Some few are like Mother Theresa. Then there is Sisyphus.

Look at it in reverse.  Some who have bad intentions and use ignoble means to rise do actually get to the top.  Politicians like Saddam Hussein made a practice of treading on the bodies of the unlucky and hapless who were in his way. His statues are all over Iraq as well as his ubiquitous pictures so all can witness his success.

It is always sad to note the truths suppressed at the time of the rise of our popular heroes.  It is depressing to know that our role models were not saints nor were their heroic feats blueprints for pathways showing that we can do it too. 

I don’t think that our present Pope is rushing things by making a Saint out of Mother Theresa.  She seems to be a genuine striver and a role model for doing good her entire life.  Were there any disclosures that sullied her name?  I am sure there are detractors whose sole purpose in life is to pull down the statues we erect to our heroes.  It is interesting to note that the detractors and diggers of slime are still working at the image some of us have about Bill Clinton, our sexually wayward ex President.

There are great efforts to put G.W. Bush on a pedestal.  That is pretty close to being at the pinnacle although some are sure he has bad intentions and used ignoble efforts on the path to get there. The jury is out although statue builders are at work.